Throughout the journey of creating Chimpped, I have discovered a vast array of helpful resources and tools that made the business, creative or execution process less complicated and challenging as it otherwise could have been. I want to share some of these resources with you over various blogs. An upfront disclaimer from me: there may of course be better or more suitable alternatives than the ones I share, depending on each person's or business' needs.
As a start-up business, everyone rolls up sleeves and dives into any work that requires to be done. There is no fancy title to shield against tedious, small and uninteresting tasks -- but of course with passion and a clear vision, all tasks are fun to do because they are like pieces of puzzle that ultimately form the Masterpiece. Given that, it wasn't too long before Tony or I became associated with different websites that help us to achieve those "tasks". For example, there were design websites, file sharing sites, incorporation document sites, etc etc. This was perfectly fine because whichever sites we were using or researching on, they were easily bookmarked and filed. The problem was with the PASSWORDS.
Every site we used required registration for an account. And every site had their own different security and format preferences for passwords. Some require at least 4 or 6 or whatever number of digits. Some require a minimum combination of capital letter, lower case and numbers. This obviously meant we had to use different passwords depending on the rules and criteria. Then there are different login ID requirements. Some ask for email address which is simple enough, but some require you to set a unique login ID. I had at least 25 sites that I used regularly for business (Chimpped) purpose. That means I have to remember at least 50 unique IDs and passwords associated with any specific site. And of course all the sites tell you to create really "unique" passwords that are hard to crack meaning the passwords are even harder to remember because they can't be easy ones like your birthday.
I could barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday or my mother's cell phone number, let alone all the combinations of letters in different sizes plus numbers.
Then came the discovery of www.lastpass.com. It is a simple and secured website for one to store login information for different websites. It has all sorts of helpful functions such as filing the sites into folders, etc. But for my purpose, lastpass does the trick in 3 steps: (1) Login (yeah, this one I have to memorize), (2) add a site URL, and (3) input the login ID and password. Now the brain can be freed up for more productive things. Of course, any online security article will tell you not to save passwords in just one place so while lastpass does the trick for the most part, we still have to store the more important and private sites' credentials in encrypted codes within our mattresses. And let's not even begin the discussion about the Security Questions that have to be answered (your childhood bestfriend, first pet's name, street name of your elementary school, etc).
Why can't we replace passwords with just a thumb-print scan on our laptop, computer and smartphone (at least for the most part)? If fingerprints are good enough for Government Security, might they not be good enough for most of the websites out there? There are certainly enough scanning technology out there where I would have thought this is actually possible.
OK, I'll stop dreaming. For now, I still love using www.lastpass.com.
As a start-up business, everyone rolls up sleeves and dives into any work that requires to be done. There is no fancy title to shield against tedious, small and uninteresting tasks -- but of course with passion and a clear vision, all tasks are fun to do because they are like pieces of puzzle that ultimately form the Masterpiece. Given that, it wasn't too long before Tony or I became associated with different websites that help us to achieve those "tasks". For example, there were design websites, file sharing sites, incorporation document sites, etc etc. This was perfectly fine because whichever sites we were using or researching on, they were easily bookmarked and filed. The problem was with the PASSWORDS.
Every site we used required registration for an account. And every site had their own different security and format preferences for passwords. Some require at least 4 or 6 or whatever number of digits. Some require a minimum combination of capital letter, lower case and numbers. This obviously meant we had to use different passwords depending on the rules and criteria. Then there are different login ID requirements. Some ask for email address which is simple enough, but some require you to set a unique login ID. I had at least 25 sites that I used regularly for business (Chimpped) purpose. That means I have to remember at least 50 unique IDs and passwords associated with any specific site. And of course all the sites tell you to create really "unique" passwords that are hard to crack meaning the passwords are even harder to remember because they can't be easy ones like your birthday.
I could barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday or my mother's cell phone number, let alone all the combinations of letters in different sizes plus numbers.
Then came the discovery of www.lastpass.com. It is a simple and secured website for one to store login information for different websites. It has all sorts of helpful functions such as filing the sites into folders, etc. But for my purpose, lastpass does the trick in 3 steps: (1) Login (yeah, this one I have to memorize), (2) add a site URL, and (3) input the login ID and password. Now the brain can be freed up for more productive things. Of course, any online security article will tell you not to save passwords in just one place so while lastpass does the trick for the most part, we still have to store the more important and private sites' credentials in encrypted codes within our mattresses. And let's not even begin the discussion about the Security Questions that have to be answered (your childhood bestfriend, first pet's name, street name of your elementary school, etc).
Why can't we replace passwords with just a thumb-print scan on our laptop, computer and smartphone (at least for the most part)? If fingerprints are good enough for Government Security, might they not be good enough for most of the websites out there? There are certainly enough scanning technology out there where I would have thought this is actually possible.
OK, I'll stop dreaming. For now, I still love using www.lastpass.com.
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